National politics

François Hollande wrote his name into history in May 2012 as the first Socialist to be elected president of France since 1988 (when the late François Mitterrand won a second term) and only the second in 65 years. Hollande’s victory paved the way for the Socialists’ sweep to power in a parliamentary election in June, breaking the centre-right’s hold over the fifth republic. The Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, France’s main centre-right party, promptly fell victim to vicious infighting from which it has yet to emerge.

Hollande’s next historic achievement was less welcome – a drop in his approval ratings to a record low of 35% by the end of the year. This could be as much a reflection of the difficult economic conditions, with flat growth and budget cuts, as of anything he did or failed to do. But the new president has appeared less sure-footed in office than in opposition. As opposition leader, his calm demeanour contrasted to his advantage with the mercurial Nicolas Sarkozy, the incumbent. In the office of president, calmness is easily perceived as indecision or complacency.

In removing Sarkozy, Hollande also stalled the French-German engine of European integration. Sarkozy may have been an unlikely partner to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in almost every respect his temperamental opposite. But in its own mysterious way the Sarkozy-Merkel relationship worked, whereas Hollande-Merkel does not. This was evident in a series of spats, most notably on EU banking supervision and on the EU’s multi-annual budget.

The second round of France’s parliamentary elections on 17 June coincided with Greece’s fourth general election in five years (and its second in 2012, following an inconclusive poll in May). The technocratic administration of Lucas Papademos was replaced by a three-party coalition led by the centre-right New Democracy, whose leader, Antonis Samaras, became prime minister. The coalition is fragile and beset by defections and expulsions – but it does enjoy a measure of democratic legitimacy that appears to be indispensable for any reform programme of the magnitude that Greece is undertaking.

Perhaps more momentous than the advent of the coalition is the accelerating self-destruction of the centre-left Pasok, which had dominated Greek politics for three decades. Of the 33 Pasok members elected to parliament in June, eight have already left the party or been expelled. It currently stands at around 6% in opinion polls, half the level of support enjoyed by the neo-fascist Golden Dawn. Pasok could, in theory, bounce back; but if it does not, its disintegration would have far-reaching implications for Greece’s politics, and its place could well be taken by the far-left, but fragmented, Syriza, which opposes Greece’s eurozone bail-out.

Italy returned as a serious player in EU politics in 2012. Mario Monti, a respected economist and former European commissioner, took over from Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right, at the end of 2011 and set his technocrat administration to work on reforms. But 2012 also showed how vulnerable these reforms remain: in December, Berlusconi withdrew his support for Monti, triggering an early election set for February. Since both the right and the left are unhappy with certain reform measures, new legislation might well be tinkered with or repealed depending on the vote.

Slovenia’s centre-right coalition, which took power at the start of 2012, had the misfortune to gain power in a climate of austerity. Beset by corruption scandals and personality clashes, the five-party coalition is struggling to implement its reforms. Slovakia swung left in a snap election in March, returning Robert Fico as prime minister after a centre-right interregnum lasting less than two years. A Social-Democrat-led four-party coalition took power in Lithuania under a new prime minister, Algirdas Butkevic˘ius, in December. In the Netherlands, an election in September produced a ‘grand coalition’ of centre-right Liberals and the Labour Party, defying an apparent trend toward political extremes.

The 2012 electoral calendar ended in December with a sweeping victory for Romania’s centre-left ruling coalition, in power as an interim administration since May. The Social Liberal Union, a four-party alliance, won a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament – a personal triumph for Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who had appeared to be almost constantly under siege since assuming power in May.

One source of irritation for Ponta was the European Commission, which challenged several of the measures he pushed through in his bid to unseat Traian Ba˘sescu, Romania’s centre-right president. The bid failed, and Ponta backtracked on numerous issues. But he is likely to have learned from the events of 2012 to avoid any action that could trigger the Commission’s intervention. This means that Crin Antonescu, Ponta’s main coalition partner, who has ambitions for the presidency, may well be the most effective constraint on Ponta’s power at this stage.

The Commission was throughout 2012 also engaged in a tug of war with Viktor Orbán’s centre-right government in Hungary, which was using its two-thirds majority to rebuild Hungary’s politics and cement its own power. Like Ponta, Orbán was forced to backtrack on some of the disputed measures, for example his attempt to force judges to retire early by lowering their mandatory retirement age from 70 to 62. The European Court of Justice confirmed in November that the law was discriminatory, Hungary’s Constitutional Court having struck it down in July.